Taylor Swift's Biggest Fan Contest

Overview

Taylor Swift’s Biggest Fan Contest is an online voting contest by the Boston radio station Kiss 108 FM giving away a chance to meet the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. In July of 2013, the contest became the target of an online raid by users of the imageboard 4chan.

Background

On July 5th, 2013, Kiss 108^[3] radio launched the “Are You Taylor Swift’s Biggest Fan?” contest, in which contestants submitted a 137 character essay describing why they should be considered Swift’s biggest fan. Profiles were subsequently created for each applicant, which could then be voted upon by other Internet users. The contest rules indicated that a winning contestant would receive tickets a Taylor Swift concert where they would be able to meet and take a photo with the pop star. On July 15th, an anonymous 4chan user submitted a thread (shown below, left) urging other users to vote for 39-year-old Charles Z^[1] on the contest voting page (shown below, right).

Notable Developments

On the same day, Redditor LouReddit submitted a screenshot of the original 4chan thread to the /r/4chan^[6] subreddit, receiving over 12,900 up votes and 770 comments in the following 24 hours. On July 16th, Redditor burnafterreading91 submitted a screenshot of the contest voting results showing Charles Z in the lead (shown below) to /r/4chan^[5] subreddit, where it garnered more than 11,900 up votes and 450 comments in the next 10 hours.

Four hours later, Redditor Capwnski resubmitted the screenshot to the /r/funny^[4] subreddit, announcing that 4chan users succeeded in voting Charles Z to the first place position. In the first six hours, the post gained upwards of 24,100 up votes and 1,800 comments. On the same day, the news blogs Gawker,^[2] The Daily Dot^[7] and Baeble Music^[8] published articles about the rigged contest.